Stracciatella
by glassfragrance
Summary: It took one year for the Cullens to realize the existence of Kagome Higurashi in Forks, one month for Edward to fall, one week to finish that darned English project, and one day for Kagome to change the Cullens' future forever. Inuyasha/Twilight


Disclaimer: This is **fan**_fiction_ . net. I am a **fan **writing _fiction _on Inuyasha and Twilight, which is owned by Rumiko Takahashi and Stephanie Meyer, respectively.

Summary: It took one year for the Cullens to realize the existence of Kagome Higurashi in Forks, one month for Edward to fall, one week to finish that darned English project, and one day for Kagome to change the Cullens' future forever. (Inuyasha/Twilight Crossover) (Kagome/Edward)

Stracciatella

Chapter One

Alice was taking a morning shower when the icy fingers of a vision gripped her mind.

It was a vision of herself, which was strange. She seldom had a vision that was centered around herself; she could count the number of times she had had a direct vision on one hand. But maybe, she mused, it was actually centered on someone else. Only time would tell, she supposed.

Her vision went like this.

_She flew through the bedroom door, thrumming with excitement, a folded red rain jacket, dewy with autumn rain, slung over her arm. Jasper's soothing voice echoed up the stairs and to her sensitive ears, willing her to calm down. Alice, who was much too lost in the clutches of fate and requited visions, set her Louis Vuitton purse and backpack down next to the bed, unzipped it, and grabbed her English binder and a light blue notebook, one that was widely used for games of Tic-Tac-Toe (which she always won, unless she was playing against Edward), mindless doodles, and sketches of clothes. The edges of her white ruffle tank brushing the desk, she set the items down and opened both the English binder, from which she procured a piece of paper, and the notebook. A pen was found, and she glanced at the clock – 4:03 PM, a little later than she usually arrived at home – before beginning to write in the notebook._

She blinked off the aftereffects of the vision and turned the warm water off, stepping out of the shower and wrapping a fluffy blanket around her slender body. What a strange vision, she decided, seemingly irrelevant and benign. But visions were tricky things – they could make the mundane appear of utmost importance, and the important seem mundane.

She could hear the soft rhythm of raindrops hitting the bathroom window and pursed her lips. A series of hangers on her bathroom door held her choice of outfit for the day: a red Prada rain jacket, dark wash Seven for Mankind jeans, a simple D&G white ruffle tank, a classic Burberry scarf, and a Louis Vuitton purse.

xxx

The vision started making sense the double period before lunch.

It was English with Mr. Matz, and he offered her and Rosalie leering smiles when they walked into the classroom. Rosalie kept a blank look on her expression, but Alice could feel the disgust emanating from Rosalie's body. The two took their customary seat in the back of the room, and Rosalie pulled out several bottles of nail polish from her large purse to touch up her manicure.

Meanwhile, Alice slid out of her rain jacket, hung it over the back of her chair, and examined the room quickly enough that the humans wouldn't catch her studying their outfits. They might have not been able to afford what Carlisle and his nearly 300 years of doctorial profession had made it so that the Cullen's could spend, but some of them had interesting style.

Finding nothing more interesting than the preps and their obnoxiously cloned style (tight fitting, low cut, brand name t-shirts and tight, low ride jeans and Uggs (1)), Alice glanced at the clock. As if on cue, the bell rang, slightly muffled and low and grating on the nerves.

Mr. Matz stood up and cleared his throat after the sound faded. He seemed to clear his throat almost every half a minute, and the scratchy sound irritated Alice's sensitive ears. She spent the rest of the class period counting how many times he cleared his throat, wincing while he did so, and stopped around 54 when he mentioned a group project, complete with an assigned partner, on Dracula and Lord of the Flies. (2)

Rosalie scoffed, a sound so soft that it would be undetectable to the human ears, and Alice glanced at her with a gentler look of resigned irritation on her face. Group projects were the worst; most humans never seemed to get over themselves enough to actually do their work. They either fumbled and stumbled around at the realization of being in the speaking presence of a gorgeous Cullen, didn't do their share of the work, or, most often, both. Not like the material was hard or anything; both could indubitably recite the false vampire novel and the short Golding story in their sleep. If they could sleep.

Comes with being a vampire, she mused. And taking AP English 3 dozens of times.

Alice loved humans, yes. She thought they were interesting creatures, foreign and strange and exciting. Associating with humans – when they were brave enough to associate back – thrilled her, made her feel as if somehow, she could connect a little to the human part that dwelled somewhere deep and lost in her soul. She too had once been human, but her memories of those days were long gone, broken by her turning, and although she wondered at times what kind of human she had been, she was Alice Cullen now and that was enough.

"Settle down class," Mr. Matz waved his hands to get attention. "Two to a group; I'll be reading names now. Everything was randomized, by the way, so no complaining about your partner. When you get your partner, please find him or her and start working. You'll have several days to work during class, but this project may take some afterschool time as well, so it may behoove you to organize that early on."

Alice waited patiently for her name to be called; Cullen, Alice always came before Cullen, Rosalie. Mr. Matz seemed to have kept same genders together through the "randomizing" process, and Alice decided that, as long as it wasn't someone like Jessica Stanley (who she had caught talking in an ill manner about Esme many times), she might make a friend out of the experience. Or, he could assign both Cullens together, but she doubted he would do that, seeing how he split the Avery twins apart.

"Alice Cullen and Kagome Higurashi," Mr. Matz called. "Rosalie Hale and Jessica Stanley."

Alice could hear Rosalie hiss in displeasure at being put together with the bint who, out of petty jealousy, never failed to spread nasty rumors about their family and wasn't sure who to feel sorry for more – Rosalie, who was stuck with Stanley, or Jessica, who would have time comparative to hell with Rosalie.

Alice, on the other hand, had no idea who this Kagome Higurashi girl was. Higurashi was a definite Japanese last name and from what she knew, there were only two Asians in tiny Forks High School, Angela Weber and Eric Yorkie. Alice frowned slightly; neither Angela nor Eric was in her English class, and she could have sworn that she had seen no Asian hair while doing her fashion scan of the classroom.

Strange, she thought, but before she could think too deeply about it, she looked up, hearing her name and saw an Asian girl waving her hands wildly to catch her attention. Alice smiled welcomingly, waved back, and watched Kagome gather her personal belongings and walk over to set it down next to Alice. She drank in Kagome's looks: pale skin touched with the edges of a fading tan, which would be almost impossible to see without vampire eyesight, dark hair that fell in waves, almost huge curls, to touch its tips at the valley between her shoulder blades, graceful movements that made carrying that huge, frayed and worn yellow book bag seem like second nature, and a bright smile that felt welcoming, but at the same time, a tad detached. Alice took a breath of air to seem human and found that Kagome did not smell lusciously life-filled like most humans did; rather, Kagome smelled fresh and crisp, like breathing in cool morning mountain air. Her scent was calming and refreshing compared to the food-like aroma everyone else carried around in this place, a scent that felt slightly sharp to her nose.

"I like your book bag a lot," Alice began as an ice breaker, bubbly voice bright and cheerful. "It's very…yellow."

Kagome looked up from setting her book bag on the floor, seeming a little startled, and grinned in a way that Alice thought seemed a little bitter (but maybe, maybe it could have been the unforgiving fluorescent lighting), "It's old and tattered and frayed too. But I like it as well, thanks!"

The two laughed, and while they reintroduced themselves and played a brief question game (Kagome: favorite color was gold or amber, but she'd rather wear silver jewelry, thank you very much, day is great and cheerful and all, but night is so much more calm and mystical, sushi is gross, but other Asian foods are fine, been here in Forks for about a year, but traveled a lot before that, that's why her English is so good, learned English while growing up in Japan, but being surrounded by people who spoke it all the time forced her to learn even more extensively, most people called her K because they couldn't pronounce her name correctly, but since Alice could, it was all good with Kagome), Alice noticed that her eyes were a deep blue, accentuated by the royal blue long sleeved shirt Kagome was wearing at the time.

Which led her to examine Kagome's clothes.

"Is that…the Prada limited edition No. 5 Courtney cut shirt?" Alice gasped. (3)

Kagome looked down as if to check which shirt she was wearing and laughed sheepishly, "I was hoping no one in this small town would notice."

"…Wow," Alice breathed. "Do you like shopping?"

Kagome took a look at Alice's hopeful eyes and laughed again, looking as if she were confessing a dark, terrible secret, "Well…yeah. I like indulging once in a while. I mean, when I was younger, it was really hard for me to do any shopping at all, because I was always busy and money was tight. So I guess I really do. It's therapeutic."

"Kagome," Alice said decisively, grabbing Kagome's hand and holding it in her own dainty one. "I think we will become very, very good friends."

Kagome just laughed and placed her free hand on top of Alice's, and Alice almost didn't notice how Kagome didn't flinch at the icy feel of vampire skin.

xxx

Kagome had seemed to be slightly reluctant to give Alice her cell phone number, but she eventually scrawled the number out in the margins of the group project assignment sheet Mr. Matz handed out.

"If we do end up not finishing at school, just call me or something, and we can figure something out," Kagome had said. "I've read both books before, but I'll skim through it again tonight, because I originally read both in Japanese. You try doing the same, okay? We'll go over stuff tomorrow."

Alice was abuzz with millions of questions about Kagome, and she attacked Rosalie on their way to lunch, after Kagome politely turned down lunch with the Cullens, saying something about the library and a book and if she didn't get this done, her grade in Biology was going to drop like woah.

"Have you met Kagome before today?" Alice asked, humming with the excitement of the possibility of having a human friend.

Rosalie snorted, still simmering at the fact that she was stuck with Jessica Stanley, "Who's Kagome?"

Alice frowned, "Don't tell me your memory is that short term, Rosalie. She's my partner for the Matz project. You know, Dracula and Lord of the Flies? That project?"

Rosalie ignored the jibe at her memory and thought for a moment, a contemplative look striking her beautiful face. She was cut off from her train of thought when Emmett slung a broad arm over her well sculpted shoulders.

"Rose, darling, you shouldn't think so much! It's bad for your skin, you know," he teased lightly, kissing her gently on the cheek. She smacked him on the head, but her hard look melted from her face, and she leaned in towards his show of affection.

Alice "awww"-ed at their sweet smiles to each other and was not surprised when Jasper swooped her up and twirled her around in his arms, carrying her to their customary table at the lunch room. Alice shrieked and giggled, kissing him in gratitude and left her seat to grab some food for the two of them. By the time she returned, Edward was already sitting in his usual seat, picking at his food to give the illusion that he was actually eating the disgusting items humans took as food, and she pranced over and hugged him sweetly. He returned the hug, a crooked smile curving his perfect mouth and lighting his face and asked her how her day had gone.

That sparked her memory, and when Rosalie returned with Emmett and two trays of food, Alice pounced, "What were you going to say about Kagome?"

Rosalie sat down and paused, looked speculative, and then began slowly, "It's just…she feels familiar, but I've never seen her. Maybe I might have seen her in the halls or something, but I don't remember if I have, and I don't think I've ever seen her in our English class. Ever."

"Who's Kagome?" Surprisingly, it was Jasper who interrupted, voice curious but even. He swept Alice's hand up with his own, intertwining their fingers endearingly, and Alice welcomed the gesture, knowing that him being playful with her helped him fix his senses on something other than the hundreds of humans milling around – all smelling sweetly of thick, coursing blood.

"Don't worry, darling, no one will come between our everlasting love," Alice proclaimed brightly, teasingly, but resumed a tad more seriously. "She's my new human best friend!"

Edward raised an elegant eyebrow, while Jasper chuckled at the array of bright emotions that Alice unleashed. Emmett guffawed, and Rosalie rolled her eyes and groaned, finally explaining to the others that Kagome was just Alice's English partner for a group project.

"How is Matz anyway?" Emmett teased. Rosalie, wanting to share a class with her long time husband during junior year, switched around her schedule last year to include a class with Emmett. However, this made it impossible for her to take AP English 3 during junior year, so she was resigned to taking a block of AP English 3 during first semester senior year and AP English 4 second semester to complete her four credits of English necessary to graduate.

"A slimy git," she grumbled, looking thoroughly disgusted. Emmett growled lowly at the thought of the 50ish year old teacher checking out his gorgeous wife, while Alice giggled.

"Oh right!" she announced, brightly. "Kagome's coming over later, okay? Some time with week. After all, we're going to have to finish that stupid project, and it'll look really suspicious if we finish after a day or two."

Rosalie shot her a dark look, "Why does she have to come over? Why can't you go to her house? There's no point in risking our existence, or even where we live to some silly human. Especially with Jasper still learning how to diet."

"Jasper will be fine," Alice said, after a moment of vision-filled contemplation. "Besides, Kagome doesn't smell like food. And she's my friend!"

Alice thought deeply, willing Edward to peer into her thoughts of Kagome and the way she looked, and Edward took a sharp breath after he did so.

"Well?" she asked, fixing her amber eyes on his narrowed ones.

"She's all…fuzzy. Blurry. I can't see her clearly. She's just a mass of colors," he frowned, his forehead lightly creasing between his brows. He ran his limber fingers through his mass of untamable hair in slight frustration.

Alice blinked and sorted through her thoughts. She could remember how Kagome looked, beautiful and taller than Alice with dark hair and pale skin and…what had been the color of her eyes? Suddenly, she found that the more she thought of how Kagome looked, the blurrier the memories of Kagome's appearance became. Am I going insane? She wondered to herself and willed herself to try again.

"Rosalie," Alice said slowly. "Do you remember what Kagome looked like?"

Rosalie scoffed, "I didn't pay attention. She was wearing that fancy shirt though, remember? The one you lusted after a while ago. I don't remember the name."

Alice found that strange; vampires are known to have impeccable memory, and Rosalie had been sitting right next to them; surely she would have seen Kagome walk over, or at least have glanced over. Also, the fact that Alice herself had forgotten Kagome's eye color, especially when it matched almost perfect with her Prada shirt…

That was it! That royal blue Prada limited edition Courtney cut shirt! Kagome's eyes had been a similar shade and her features suddenly sharpened into focus once again. Edward, having concentrated on her thoughts this whole time, shook his head at Kagome's foreign appearance.

"I've never seen her before," he said contemplatively. "It's not like I pay attention to everyone I see, but I'm sure I'd remember if I saw her anywhere."

"Her name sounds Asian. Maybe Japanese?" Jasper mused. "I thought only that Yorkie kid and that other junior (was her name Angel? Angela?) were Asian. She sounds very distinctive."

"I think she's Japanese, but she has blue eyes," Alice said.

The family sat around in silence, mulling over the day's events, when suddenly, Alice gasped.

"I forgot my jacket!"

xxx

Alice searched everywhere for her beloved red Prada rain jacket. Eyes bright with worry, she flitted around the school, first checking Mr. Matz's room, then the Lost and Found, then subtly, all the girls' bags and purses. The distinctive smell of her jacket abruptly faded outside Mr. Matz's room and made tracking the jacket difficult. Alice knew that with the money Carlisle made, she could easily custom make another, but the Prada jacket was a present Jasper had gotten her several years ago and held many fond memories. It wouldn't be the same if it weren't the one Jasper had handpicked for her.

The end of the school day approached quickly, and when the final bell rang, Alice was still without her rain jacket. To top it all off, it began drizzling again sometime after lunch, and Alice's D&G top was getting spotted with rain. The others had run off to help search for the jacket and left Jasper to deal with the moody Alice. Worried at her conflicted emotions, Jasper was in the motion of pulling his left arm out of his own rain jacket in hopes of offering it to her when Kagome showed up.

"Here," Kagome offered her a neatly folded up red Prada rain jacket. "I went back to Mr. Matz's room before lunch ended because I forgot my pencil, and I saw this on your chair. Prada, right? I'd be freaking out if I lost this."

Alice gave her a wide-eyed, grateful look and flew into her arms, "Thank you so much Kagome! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!"

Kagome returned the hug with a sweet smile settled on her face and said, "No problem. I'm sure you'd do the same for me too!"

Alice smiled and then remembered Jasper was nearby. "Kagome, I'd like you to meet my boyfriend and soul mate, Jasper Cullen. We're both adopted, but we found love in each other."

Jasper offered a hand, and Alice found it predictable but still slightly shocking that Jasper didn't seem to look pained like he usually did when near potential food. He seemed quite relaxed and was breathing legitimately with a calm look settled on his face; she could definitely feel his soothing touch in the air. Kagome gripped his hand with nary a shiver and grinned at him.

"I think that's amazing," she said with honesty blatant in her eyes and a mischievous twinkle in the corners of the blue depths. "I wish I had found my soul mate by now. And get to live with him? Now that's the life. No sneaking out to be together needed, right?"

Alice giggled, "Of course not. Our bedrooms are adjoined!"

Kagome wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, laughed, and said, "Well, I've really got to be going. It was nice to meet you, Jasper! I'll see you tomorrow, Alice."

With that, the trio exchanged farewells, and Jasper and Alice watched as Kagome climbed into a metallic blue Toyota Camry, which looked sparkly new. Although it wasn't extravagant like Rosalie's brightly colored, half-a-million dollar cars, it still stuck out in the parking lot of ancient, hand-me-downs like a tree in the middle of a field. How had they never noticed that before?

Before they could contemplate this for very long, the other Cullens returned and, seeing Alice cheerful and with a familiar red rain jacket settled over her arm, the five went home.

In Edward's car, Jasper leaned over and whispered, "I like her, Alice."

"Who, Kagome?" Alice grinned. "I knew it!"

"What's her last name anyway?" Edward asked, overhearing their conversation and having seen their encounter with the strange Japanese girl through their thoughts.

"Hirugashi? Higarushi? Hisagari?" Alice frowned. How could she forget something like this again? Maybe something really was wrong with her. She would ask Carlisle later.

And then it hit her.

"…Alice?" Jasper, worried, leaned over to look into her wide eyes. "Are you okay?"

She shook her head as if to clear away some stray thoughts and chirped, "Yeah, I'm fine!"

As soon as their car pulled into their driveway, Alice shot out of the silver Volvo and through the house, up to the second floor. From there, she flew through the bedroom door, thrumming with excitement, a folded red rain jacket, dewy with autumn rain, slung over her arm. Jasper's soothing voice echoed up the stairs and to her sensitive ears, willing her to calm down. Alice, who was much too lost in the clutches of fate and requited visions, set her Louis Vuitton purse and backpack down next to the bed, unzipped it, and grabbed her English binder and a light blue notebook, one that was widely used for games of Tic-Tac-Toe (which she always won, unless she was playing against Edward), mindless doodles, and sketches of clothes. The edges of her white ruffle tank brushing the desk, she set the items down and opened both the English binder, from which she procured a piece of paper, and the notebook. A pen was found, and she glanced at the clock – 4:03 PM, a little later than she usually arrived at home – before beginning to write in the notebook.

She glanced at the assignment sheet she had pulled out from her binder and began to copy into the notebook Kagome's scrawled handwriting.

"Kagome Higurashi, (xxx) xxx-xxxx"

xxx

A/N: It's been my dream to do an Inuyasha/Twilight crossover (perhaps a Harry Potter/Twilight one later) for a while now, so I'm glad that summer and spontaneously bought Lindt Truffles have made it possible. Characterization for Alice is surprisingly difficult, but I hope you readers are satisfied with "my" Alice. When using Alice POV, you must keep her exuberant but, still thoughtful. After all, she is a vampire and therefore has been alive for quite a while.

I know, it's a little confusing. But things will be cleared up, and life will make sense.

AP: Advanced Placement. A step above honors, can be counted as a college credit.

(1) On the clothing that characterizes the stereotypical "prep", you must know it's true. Well, at least, the preps I know are like this. I was once a prep, so I think I know pretty well. I realized at that time that preps were basically just carbon copies of each other (clothing wise, at least). One person gets something cool, and everyone has to follow. Also, the girls at my school happen to wear Uggs a lot when it rains/snows, which I feel is really really stupid, because the suede Uggs are made of are basically ruined when exposed to water…

(2) I actually reread Lord of the Flies last month, even if I did all that analyzing stuff in freshman year, and I found it'll tie in well with my story. As will Dracula (well, of course…pseudo vampire story!), although I must admit that I have never read Dracula.

(3) "Prada limited edition No. 5 Courtney cut shirt" – I made that up.

On the name "Stracciatella," I was actually eating Lindt Truffles (assorted) when inspiration for this story hit me. There was a "trial" truffle that was based off Stracciatella (Italian ice cream flavor which is tantamount to cookies and cream), and I don't know, it just sounded really classy. And, I promise it WILL come into play. Eventually.

I invite any reviews and especially criticisms! This is my first actual (complete) chapter in about two or three years, so I feel terribly rusty! Anyone interested in beta-ing (for me and from me), please drop in a review or PM.


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